


Schrödinger's Cat

by LittleObsessions



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, POV First Person, Siblings, Some Cursing, Tumblr Prompt, frank conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleObsessions/pseuds/LittleObsessions
Summary: "I think I might be starting to feel pity for her now. She looks so delicate, cradling her cup, and her memories. "For ariella, with the prompt she gave me.





	Schrödinger's Cat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariella884](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariella884/gifts).



> Thank you to the wonderful Helen8462 for casting her eye over this.

 

 

* * *

**Prompt –**   “My life before him was so simple and decided, now after him...It's just...After.”

* * *

 

She looks like shit, I think, watching her across the table.

The bags under her eyes are ugly, her mouth is thin, her skin is pale and grey. And out of uniform she seems to have lost her form.

My mother says she’s drinking too much. But it doesn’t stop Gretchen pouring her another. She never was good at saying no to either of us but particularly bad at saying no to Kath.

Everyone is.

She once told me about Schrödinger’s Cat, I think it was called. I couldn’t care less about science - that was for her and mom and dad, and I kept art to me like it was a secret no one else could know - but that one has always stuck in my head.

About how the cat was both alive and dead, because no one knew if the poison had been broken open.

Here she is, the human embodiment of the paradox. She’s alive and dead all at once.

But there’s definitely some sort of poison slowly tipping the scales.

She’s breathing, but it doesn’t mean she’s alive.

After seven years of waiting, and grieving, and wondering, I’m appalled to admit that she’s a disappointment to me.

She used to be walking-fire; fast talking, gesticulating, passionate. She intimidated me and enthralled me all at once.

And now she’s just here and no more, sitting across from me at the table we grew up around.

“Mom called. She’s worried about you.”

She lifts her head, and she frowns.

“She’s being stupid.”

“I’d be the first to agree,” I say. “But actually I am worried too. She tells me you won’t answer any of the crew’s calls. She says Chakotay has turned up on the doorstep three -“

“Enough.”

She looks like I’ve tried to flay her alive, the pain on her face is palpable.

I suspected as much. Here’s the poison, I think.

Mom always says you need to draw poison out. But I don’t know if my sister has the strength for that.

“Do you want a coffee Kathryn?”

She shakes her head, “I don’t want your pity either.”

“That’s the last thing I intend to give you,” I answer, meaning it.

I’ve no pity for Kathryn. I never have had. She’s selfish, and completely consumed by her own ambition.

But I love her. I love her because she is my sister, and because she makes me laugh, and because she’s always been far more damaged than I am.

And mostly because I have to.

“But I would listen, if you would just talk,” I order up the coffee she didn’t want and slide it towards her.

She drinks from it, slowly, as if she’s never tasted it before.

“In the first few months, I had to ration my coffee intake,” she volunteers and as strange as the topic is, I figure I’ll take it if it keeps her talking.

“Oh, that must have been-“

“He used to give me his ration tokens,” she cuts through, and I’m shocked our path to ‘him’ has been so direct.

I don’t say anything.

“He was - is - good like that. He’s kind. And better than me at understanding what they needed. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

“From the sounds of it,” I don’t look at her, she won’t want that, “you still can’t.”

She makes a noise, in the back of her throat, somewhere between a hum and a sob, and I spend a second being proud of how I just absolutely nailed the centre of this down.

“My life before him was so simple and decided, now after him...It's just...After. And do you know the humiliation of it all comes from the fact that I can’t get over him.”

I think I might be starting to feel pity for her now. She looks so delicate, cradling her cup, and her memories. Kathryn Janeway has never found it hard getting over a man, in fact she used to get over several in one night.

“He’s turned up here, wanting to see you. He’s tried. I think he’s tried. Maybe you need to meet him in the middle.”

I suggest this, absolutely sure she will balk at the idea.

“His mistakes aren’t as big as mine,” she murmurs, and I don’t even want to know what that means. “I don’t know if we could.”

I decide to be as honest as I can be.

“You’ve got to start living again. If he’s the life you want to live, you’ve got to go after him.”

She nods, and squares her shoulders. I think I might have won this one, which makes me wonder if she really needed me to be convincing at all, or if she just needed a fourth coffee to galvanise her.

“When did you become so wise?” She asks, and it’s not mocking.

It’s nice to have even a little bit of my sister back, in the After.

“Schrödinger Cat,” I say. “You’re either alive or you’re dead.”

She grins a little, and stands up.

“It’s a good thing you paint so beautifully, because you’re shit with science.”

I grin, and finish her coffee for her as she leaves the kitchen.

 

 

 


End file.
